Split
by Riona
Summary: Max feels like she's living three different lives simultaneously. Is Chloe alive? Was there ever a storm? Is she still in the Dark Room? Maybe she really did break time. (Contains Dark Room creepiness and Max/Chloe.)


There's a storm. Afterwards, they drive through the wreckage, and they look at each other, and then they just keep driving, as if there's any way they can get away from this.

(There's no storm. There's a funeral in beautiful sunshine. Max holds it together until the end of the service, when it really hits her that she's somehow meant to carry on with her life. She falls to the ground and presses her forehead into the dirt and shakes for twenty minutes, even though she doesn't deserve grief; she was responsible for Chloe's death. Joyce is the one who helps her to her feet.)

 _There's a storm. But the Dark Room is sturdily built, and Max survives, and so does the man who put her there._

* * *

Max still hasn't kissed Chloe. She wants to. She's thought about it a lot. And there have been times when she's thought Chloe might be okay with it. It's just...

What if she's wrong? What if Chloe doesn't want that? Maybe she'd just go along with it – maybe she'd feel she _owed_ Max. Max sacrificed a town for her, and this is the cost.

The thought makes Max feel sick. She'd be no better than Mr Jefferson.

So she can't make the first move. Just in case she's misreading things. Just in case that dare in Chloe's room was just a stupid joke.

She keeps remembering their kiss by the lighthouse, just before she went back and let Chloe die. That didn't feel like a joke.

But it can't have happened, because Chloe is alive. She's here.

* * *

 _"Well," Mr Jefferson says, "I **was** going to kill you, so you couldn't go to the police. But that doesn't really seem to be our biggest problem any more, does it?"_

 _The storm's brought the barn down on top of them, apparently. There's no way to shift the trapdoor. He'd even let her help push, once the sedative had worn off enough; it wasn't as if she could escape. She's bound in the chair again now, of course._

 _"Fortunately, this place **is** equipped to function as a shelter as well as a studio," Mr Jefferson says. "There's enough food and water to last a few months." He sits back and looks at her. "Here's my question to you, Max. Am I going to reduce my supplies by splitting them in two? Bearing in mind that I'm going to have to kill you anyway if we're rescued."_

 _Max can feel her heart hammering against her chest. She tries to focus on that, instead of on his voice._

 _"But isolation is bad for the mind, they say," Mr Jefferson says, getting to his feet. "And I'm not especially keen to spend the foreseeable future sharing a room with a corpse." He offers Max a bottle of water._

 _She looks flatly at the bottle, then at him. "I can't move my hands, asshole."_

 _"Then I'll feed you myself," Mr Jefferson says. "Whatever the case, you'll need to keep your strength up. We have a lot of photos to take, and all the time in the world to take them in."_

* * *

(She visits Mr Jefferson in prison. She doesn't know why.

"Missing my classes?" he asks, with a wry, twisted smile.

"I just wanted to see you trapped," she says. "Like you did to all those girls."

"Trapped? Max, I never _trapped_ anyone. They were temporary guests in my studio. When they had finished modelling, they could go home."

"You trapped _me_."

Mr Jefferson blinks and frowns. "I don't recall ever having the pleasure."

There are restraints around her wrists, her mind keeps telling her, but when she looks down there's nothing there.

"It's a shame," he says. "You could have been a perfect subject.")

* * *

They've been taking hotel rooms, Chloe paying with credit cards Max has decided against asking about. Nowhere they go is ever far enough away. Especially as Max is pretty sure their escape is being funded by people who died in the storm.

Always one room, one bed. They've never really discussed it. They've been pretty much staying on their own sides. It hasn't felt charged, not really.

It feels charged today.

Chloe's hand trails over Max's arm, and Max is suddenly very aware of how _close_ she is. She tries to swallow. Her heart's beating too fast, and she can't seem to remember how to breathe normally, and—

 _"Hm?" Mr Jefferson smiles, and Max's skin crawls. "What's this, Max? What an... interesting response. Perhaps you were never so innocent after all."_

 _She tries to slow down her breathing. She can't._

 _"Of course, sexual arousal and fear are very similar, physiologically." He brushes her hair back behind her ear, lingering for barely an instant. She grits her teeth, waiting for whatever comes next, but he only steps back and picks up his camera._

Max almost throws up. She shoves Chloe away from her and runs.

"Max?" Chloe calls, as Max slams the door behind her.

* * *

 _He still hasn't touched her, except to move her into position for a shot. She almost wishes he would; at least then she wouldn't have to live with this suspense, with not knowing whether it's eventually going to happen._

 _Maybe this is a dream. Maybe one of the other timelines is real, one of the other lives she sometimes feels like she's in. She doesn't care which. Anything but this._

* * *

She's staring out over the ocean, thinking of storms, when Chloe flops down on the grass next to her. It gives her a jolt. She hadn't realised this was the reality where Chloe was still alive.

"Okay, Max," Chloe says. "You are being really weird. And I'm gonna sit here until you talk about it or we both starve to death."

It makes her think of the limited supplies in the Dark Room she isn't trapped in. She looks away.

"Max?" Chloe reaches around to tap Max's forehead. "Earth to Max?"

Max hesitates for a long, long moment.

If she can't talk to Chloe about this, she can't talk to anyone. She'll have to stay silent about it for the rest of her life. The rest of her... however many lives she's living.

She might not be able to deal with that.

"I... think I kind of broke time," she says. "Or maybe I'm just losing my mind."

"Okay," Chloe says. "More specific?"

She's saying it. There's no turning back now.

"I kept making all these different timelines, trying to make things right," Max says. "But... it's like those timelines didn't go away. I feel like I'm living in all these different realities at once. Like, sometimes we'll be talking, and then the next moment I'm in a world where Nathan killed you and—" _And there was no storm._ She can't make herself say it. "I was at your _funeral_ , Chloe. I _remember_ that."

"Shit, Max," Chloe mutters.

Max actually almost laughs. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. And..." It's hard to breathe, suddenly; her chest feels too tight. "I don't know what's real. I don't know if you're here or if you died or if I'm still stuck in that fucking Dark Room—"

"Hey. Hey, hey, Max, look at me." Chloe grips Max's hand in hers, so hard it hurts. "You are _not_ in that place. Feel that?" She kisses Max, quick and fierce. "That's me. I'm real. This is real."

Max swallows, twice. Nods.

She can feel Mr Jefferson's fingers on the back of her neck.


End file.
